


Stillness in Time

by woollen_pharaohs



Category: Bob's Burgers (Cartoon), Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Crack, Blood, bob's burgers/teen wolf, eventual stiles stilinski/derek hale
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-11
Updated: 2015-01-19
Packaged: 2018-01-01 04:57:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1040605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/woollen_pharaohs/pseuds/woollen_pharaohs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tina's just a normal girl, working at her parents' burger shop while she dreams of boy's butts. One rainy night, something happens to her that changes her whole life. A story of maturity, trust and the quest for justice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tina Gets Bit

 

Lightning flashes through the massive glass windows, and Tina counts; _one missisippi, two missisippi, three missisippi… four missisippi?_ And even though she counts it out the sound of the thunder still makes her jump. The thunder used to scare her a whole lot when she was young, she used to have to jump into Mum and Dad's bed and sidle between them, relaxed by their warmth and soothed by Mum's hand rubbing her back as she groaned through the thunder. Now that she's older she appreciates the calm it has over the city; she likes to leave her window open in her bedroom even though her Mum tells her not to (because it lets rain in over her desk, Tina's learnt to drag her raincoat over her books) and lies down on her bed, listens to the stillness of the city. Everyone goes home on a rainy night, the streets are empty, the shop's empty. Perhaps if they had a drive thru Bob's Burgers would get more business but that's a dream to come true in ten years or so; Tina was pretty optimistic.   

 

 

 

*

Tina's closing up shop and the last thing to do is to take out the rubbish while Mum pre-stages the equipment for tomorrow. Tina hauls the two large bags into the alley, drags them to the dumpster. She takes a grip of just one bag, begins to swing it side to side; she's in her mojo, swinging the bag higher and higher each time until she can sling it into the dumpster when she hears a rustling noise behind her. Tina really hopes they're racoons. This one time she was taking out the rubbish she found a family of racoons and in all the shows she's ever seen it was always the racoons that were rabid but these one's, they were the cutest. They were huddled up in this one box and they let Tina pat them once but once was enough for them, Tina guessed they were late for their Animal Town Council the way they fled from the alley.

Just as Tina gets the bag into the dumpster she turns with a forming smile and for a fraction of a second sees a flash of fur and then blackness.

Tina opens her eyes but all she can see is running water over her vision, can smell the sickening smell of wet rubbish. She pats the asphalt for her glasses and when she finds them, she places them on her face with cold, shaky hands. The bag she'd been trying to swing had spilled more than half of its contents out on the ground. She gets up, dizzy, and places a hand on the cold dumpster. It's then she realizes she's drenched to the bone, her glasses are covered in droplets and her leg hurts, but not in the itchy way but the sore muscley way, like it's on the inside of her skin and on the outside at the same time. Tina wipes her glasses against her shirt, quite ineffectively and has a look at her leg. It's red, she's definitely fallen over and grazed it, the rain's washing the blood away clean. Embarrassed, Tina hastily shovels the spread out rubbish into the split bag and makes the bag into the dumpster before rushing inside.

"Oh baby, you'd been so long I forgot where you'd gone," Linda calls from the front counter as she comes through to the back room.

Tina pulls up her sock to cover her graze, wrings out the edge of her shirt straight onto the ground. She's unsure how long she was out there for, and she doesn't want to worry Mum, so she prepares a lie.

Mum pops her head around the corner, a glimmer of concern over her face, "are you okay Tina?"

"Yep fine Mum, I just had an idea for one of my stories so I'm going to go upstairs and write it down before I forget," Tina lies, brushing passed her mother as she makes her way for the front door. Her ears are hot and her leg feels funny and she feels bad for lying, but she just needs to get out of her wet clothes.

"Oh that's nice baby, maybe after dinner you can let me read it?" Mum says hopefully in her sing-song voice.

"We talked about this Mum, it's not ready yet!" Tina calls as she slips through the door.

Tina stomps up the stairs, wet shoes leaving imprints in the carpet. As soon as she's inside her bedroom she kicks off her shoes against the wall, peels off her clothes and slips straight into comfy pyjamas. She perches on her bed frame, examines her graze. It's stopped bleeding now, the rain must have washed most of it away. Now her skin's just kind of pink, _inflamed_ she thinks is the word for it. Tina traces her fingers along her skin, along these odd teeth shaped indents in her pink skin, kind of like the mouth of some animal had bitten into her skin. Surely the racoons hadn't taken revenge on her for making them late to the animal council; Tina knew that couldn't be true because Louise told Tina that Dad had made that up. But then, Louise does make stuff up a lot…

The rain is falling in slow sheets outside her window. Tina lays her raincoat over her books on her desk before opening up the window. It's not the best solution, water still runs off her raincoat to the floor. It hasn't yet occurred to Tina to just move the stuff that will get wet. 

She lies down on her bed, head at the opposite end to be as close to the window as possible. She kicks her blankets around her into a cocoon shape, tucking the ends underneath her body. But she finds her hand weaving through the blankets to explore her already healing wound, anaylsing each and every indent in her skin; the size, the depth, the shape. It wasn't like it hurt her still, she was just curious. 

A loud rap on her bedroom door announces Gene to his presence. "TINA. IT'S DINNER TIME!" he shouts.

"I'm not coming!" Tina calls from beneath the blankets, hoping it's loud enough.

"WHAT?!"

"I'm not hungry, I'm not coming!" Tina calls again, a little quieter even though she knew she was meant to be louder when repeating what people hadn't heard.

Gene cracks Tina's door open slightly and wedges his lips between the gap, "Don't you want dinner?"

Tina grunts a no in reply, staying still in her cocoon. 

"But dinner's the best meal of the day in this god damn house!" Gene says as he tries to step through.

Tina wriggles her head out of the blankets, " _Don't_ come in Gene!"

"Gene don't swear," Mum says from behind. She pulls Gene back by his shirt and holds his shoulder as she speaks, "Tina, you're not coming to dinner? That's okay baby, you've had a big day. I'll bring you some leftovers a little later okay, my little Teenie Tina."

"I'm not a little girl anymore," Tina says, throwing her blanket over her head.

"I know you're not honey, come on Gene, if your sister doesn't want dinner I can't force it into her."

Mum closes the door and Tina sighs. When it's raining like this Tina just likes to zone out, listen to the rain drench the city into silence, so she can dream.

 

*

 

It'd been about two hours, dinner would've been long passed and it's just about time for Louise to disobey instructions from her parents to give Tina a rest.

It starts in a crescendo repetition of Tina's name as Louise slinks into Tina's room, crawling along the ground, and as she gets louder she steps up higher until she's screaming Tina's name and jumps on her bed.

" _Louise_ get _off_!" Tina shouts, though remaining stationary.

"TINA. TINA. TINA!" Louise shouts, then suddenly plops down on the bed, "what cha doin?"

Louise grabs a hold of Tina's blankets and attacks them, flinging them in the air and she's under them, sitting cross legged across from her sister.

"Hey Louise."

"Hey sister. What's up? Didn't see you at dinner. Pretty unfair don't you think that you can sit here in your room all by yourself and I have to sit out there with that rabble, eating their rabbley rubbish that they call food."

"You like Dad's cooking."

"Shush, shush, that's what I want him to think. It's all part of the game see."

"What game?"

Louise quickly changes topic, "hey hey, what's this lil sis?"

Tina drawers her legs to her chest, tugs her pyjama bottoms down ineffectively. "Nothing."

"Nothing means something, show me."

Tina doesn't fight. She never fights with Louise, not that she never wants to, she does sometimes but there's just something about Louise that makes Tina so submissive towards her. Maybe it's her demanding tone of voice; Tina's never been able to replicate that.

Tina folds up her right leg pant of her pyjamas, bares her wound to the world.

"Ew what the crap is that?" Louise says, creeping closer, the blanket above her clinging to her movements.

"I think something bit me, but I'm okay."

"Looks gross, look at your skin it's all blotchy, why's it not bleeding it looks like it _should_ be bleeding Tina, this is something you should be worrying about," Louise says, sticking her tongue out.

Tina touches her wound instinctively, protectively, "it's nothing, it's all healed up. Don't tell Mum and Dad, please, I don't want them to worry."

Louise laughs, "I'm kidding, the thing looks fine sis. I won't tell, but you owe me one."

"Thanks Louise.."

There's a small moment of silence, like a secret handshake of trust had been made within that second, and then Louise is back to her rambly self.

"You know you could have been bitten by a wild dog and go crazy. That's why they call them rabid dogs, because they go nuts and froth from the mouth."

"I think a vampire bit me. That's why it healed so fast."

"No shit! Sister if a vampire really bit you, you gotta share the bite with me. The eternal elixir, to live forever… that's my dream, and I gotta find that philosopher's stone while I'm young."

"I don't think it works that way."

Louise sits up straight, "Whaddya mean?"

"Well in the folklore you only get turned by the head vampire, the leader or whatever."

"You got that wrong, that's werewolves."

"Is it?"

"Yup, if we had the world wide web at our fingertips I would prove you wrong in two seconds motherfucker. You just gotta trust me on this one."

"Don't swear Louise."

Louise slints hers eyes, gives Tina a sideways look, "soz."

"OH MY GOD ARE YOU GUYS MAKING A FORT WITHOUT ME HOW DARE YOU!" Gene shouts, leaping on top of the girls.

Louise screams, bursts out of a gap in the bed sheets and pummels Gene to the ground.

"Stop fighting guys," Tina pleads, about to get out of bed, but opting to cover up her legs instead.

Within moments Louise has dominated Gene, coerces him out of Tina's room. Just before they leave, Louise pauses, squints at Tina. "I'm one up on you Tina, you owe me for this secret. Remember that."

"What secret? WHAT SECRET LOUISE WHY DO YOU GUYS ALWAYS LEAVE ME OUT OF THINGS!"

Tina feels a bit guilty about leaving Gene out, but the less people know the better. It's just like her fanfiction, the story isn't complete, so she's not ready to share it yet.

 

*

 

 

It's just after lunch on a Saturday and Tina's longing for her shift to end just so she can rip her pants off and get her skirt back on her hips. Skirts mean freedom for her leg hair, but pants mean shields for her teeth marks but after five hours of sweating in pants she's sure of her opinion on the matter.

Tina's wiping down a table when she glances out the window to see a leather bound gang of handsome young men pile out of a battered jeep. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club music starts playing from somewhere in her mind as she watches them stride towards her shop. Slick hairdos, furrowed brows, sharp jaws, leather jackets, tight pants. She bets they have nice butts.

Seemingly the leader of the group pushes through the door of Bob's Burgers, his stern face immediately turning to a scowl as he glares at Tina, nose flaring, and she, mouth wide open, love hearts in her eyes, stares back.

"Ohhhh no, oh no," Dad says, coming out of the kitchen, "I think you've got the wrong place here guys. This isn't a biker gang bar, it really isn't. Whatever they told you, we do _not_ give out free beer to biker gangs. Nope. Because we're not a biker gang bar."

The eldest of the three speaks evenly, "we are not a biker gang."

"You kinda fit the stereotype honey," Mum says, standing by Dad. "you've got the dos, the leather, that _car_ , the fact that you're in a group together…"

"We're _not_ a gang," the leader says, teeth grit.

A guy with shorter hair and a button nose steps forward, lays a hand on the leader's shoulder, "I guess we kinda are a gang… If you think about it."

The leader glares at the hand on his shoulder, then at the younger guy, "but we aren't bikers, are we Stiles?"

"Look, we're not trying to … we just don't want the wrong type of business here, the kind that gets little kid's ears ripped off you know?" Mum says.

"Linda!" Dad exclaims.

"Uh, what?" The guy called Stiles says.

The third guy says, "Ma'am, we're not going to cause any trouble. We just want some lunch okay? We're really hungry," a soft twinkle in his eyes.

Mum nods, and pushes her husband into the kitchen, "Tina, get the boys some menus."

Tina swallows dust hard, almost chokes. The men choose a booth and sidle in close, and Tina feels like hours are passing as she makes her way to the menu box and back to their table, like she's been frozen in time and has had to wade through wet sand. She wants to kick herself, she's so focused on getting one foot in front of the other that she forgets to casually observe their butts as they walk to their seats.

When she's close enough to their table, she practically throws the menus on their table, takes a deep breath.

"You got any specials?" The leader says gruffly, looking sharply at the menus.

"uhhhhhhhh" Tina moans.

"It says there on the board, the special is the Top Bun Burger … comes with our best seven-grained bun… how about that?" The guy called Stiles suggests.

"Top…. butts…" Tina garbles quietly.

The leader grunts, "I'll try it."

"I can't be bothered to pick, I'll just have what you're having Stiles," the third guy says.

"So I guess we'll all have what Derek's having huh?" Stiles says, turns to Tina, "three Top Bun Burgers please."

"uhhhhhhhhh" 

"Okie dokie, three top bun burgers huh?" Linda says a little loudly, rounding the counter to her daughter, takes her aside and whispers quickly, "keep it cool baby girl, let's not aggravate them."

"I'm not…"

"Here," Linda presses a cloth in her hand, "keep cleaning the tables, don't want to make a scene with them."

"Yeah I'll just clean some tables…" Tina says, leather clad butts circling her mind.

She drops the cloth on the nearest table and begins circling the cloth around to little effect on the already pristine clean table. Tina tries to act inconspicuous as she listens in on their conversation.

"Hope it doesn't take long." Derek mumbles, but to Tina it sounds as if he's speaking right in her ear.

"Speak up Derek, can't hear ya like Scott can." Stiles says, slapping Derek on the back.

"I just don't want to be long, I'm itching to get out there and look for them." Derek says, shrugging Stiles arm off.

"We know they're not moving, that's the point of coming here right? Besides we've gotta eat, keep our strength up." The guy called Scott says, grinning.

"Still, it's a big city, we're gonna have to stick around for a while to make sure we don't miss anything." Stiles says.

"Boyd said his cousin lives here in the city, maybe we could stay with her so we don't have to head back to Beacon Hills." Scott suggests.

"I don't think Vivienne will want three men hanging in her flat, that's a bit too much." Stiles says.

"Oh my god that smells amazing," Derek says in a rush, growling almost and Tina's frozen in place by the very sound.

"All I'm saying is I think we should get a place to stay so we can focus on this thing. If you don't want to I'm going to just have to sleep in the streets."

"You do that Scott."

Playing the peacekeeper, "Look, we'll figure something out guys. We're doing a good thing here you gotta remember that Derek."

"It's not exactly our business though considering-"

"Here's your orders gentlemen," Mum says, placing the plates of burgers in front of them.

They express their gratitude and, with each of the Belcher's enjoyment in various degrees as all three of their customers gobble down the burgers in record speed; Tina in loving admiration, Louise and Gene in anticipation of one of them spewing, Linda and Bob in expectation of another order.

"Would you like another round?" Dad calls from the kitchen window.

"Yes." All three say in unison.

Tina's parents busy themselves preparing the next round of burgers. Tina has to grip the table as she begins to feel dizzy, caught in her dreams of leather bound handsome men break dancing around her. Suddenly a painful shiver rockets throughout her body and it feels as if ten times the amount of hair she should have on her legs suddenly grows, itching against her stupid pants. The same sensation occurs on her arms, and she thinks she makes some kind of noise like a growl before she blacks out, mortally embarrassed even in unconsciousness that she fainted in front of hot guys. 


	2. Just a kid

Swirling through the darkness, Tina hears a loud crash. A storm of galloping unicorns trample over her head, her mind throbs, body sways and falls through the motionless floor beneath her. Her leg itches like mad but she has to ignore all that, she knows she's not quite asleep and therefore she has to wake up, try to focus on the voices into wakefulness. The voices are deep, husky, animalistic growls that awaken something inside of her, waves of anticipation revs her body, the wheels of her motorcycle spinning at the edge of the cliff.

She wakes with a start, hooves of dark unicorns holding her down. Her glasses are lopsided but she can just make out the bodies, and they're not the bodies of sleek unicorns but jagged and furry and wild.

"Oh my baby Tina are you okay? You know you can tell me if you're not feeling good, we talked about it, it's okay to sit down and have a rest every once and a while," Linda says beside Tina, holding her hand.

Mum's voice is always soothing, sure she can be loud and her singing isn't always on key but who cares about being on key when you're having fun. That's what Tina loves about her Mum, that she's fearless, she loves herself and she loves her family fiercely.

"I'm fine, I just couldn't deal with the hotness," Tina says, trying to sit up.

"Bobby, I told you we should've got that portable air con, it gets too hot in here for our baby girl."

"I don't think she was talking about the _heat_ ," Gene says, an electric wolf whistle right on key.

Bob ignores his son and scoops Tina up in his arms, "I'm going to take her upstairs, Gene, get the door."

Tina feels a little demeaned being picked up by her father, after all, she's a grown woman, but she's surprised he can still lift her, and she can't deny the fun of it. Tina watches over her father's shoulders as the boys with the black leather and the dark hair and the clothes tailored to their bodies draw into a tight group and begin talking quietly amongst each other. As she's being carried out of the store Tina expects her ability to hear what the cute boys were saying to fade but exactly the opposite happens; she's able to hear them as if she was standing right in the centre of their circle.

_She's a wolf._

 

*

 

"Are you sure?" Stiles asks incredulous.

"Come on Stiles, you saw what just happened, and not that you can tell but _I_ could smell the wolf on her," Scott says.

"She's just a kid," Derek says quietly, frowning.

"Does that mean the rest of her family are wolves too? That must've been why they were so weird about gangs being in their restaurant. They definitely look the part," Stiles laughs, nudges Scott.

"No, it's only the kid. She's been turned recently. Scott, you haven't been a werewolf long enough to tell the difference."

"We don't know these parts like we do Beacon Hills, this city is huge, there could be more packs than we could ever have imagined. Who's to say they don't turn kids young?" Scott says.

"It's not right, they shouldn't be!" Derek growls.

Stiles glances at Scott, then back at Derek, "hey, calm down, that's why we're here right? We've got to investigate the packs here, make sure they're not doing anything wrong, stop the spread of rogue wolves into our territory."

"Stiles is right, this is like a breadcrumb or whatever, our first clue. We'll ask her a few questions - hang on a sec, did they all just leave?"

 "We should probably leave," Stiles says.

The others agree and make for the door. Before they leave, Scott takes out a pen and quickly scribbles down a note for Tina on a napkin, folds it in half, and leaves it on the counter.  The boys pile up in the car, headed for Boyd's cousin's place.

 

*

 

Tina's parents fuss about her as she lies on her bed. She insists she's alright, a-okay, but they won't quit. Mum brings in dinner blitzed into a lumpy brown soup and Dad checks her temperature, her heartbeat, that her breathing is regular, but that's as far as medical checks go. He sits on the edge of her bed while she rests, cleaning the lenses of her glasses with his dirty apron.

Tina couldn't get to sleep, she felt restless and the need to burst out into song and dance almost overwhelmed her discipline to remain still and maintain the restful facade. She had replayed the events of the evening in her mind countless times; from the moment she spotted the men stepping out of their car to the moment just before she fainted, when all she could see through her eyes were their butts clenched in tight clothing. Granted, she didn't actually get to see that, but she filled in the blanks.

Mum opens Tina's bedroom door open a crack, calls Dad softly, "is she asleep?"

Dad clears his throat, "I think so. She's been doing that wriggle thing on and off. I think she'll be fine," he says, standing up.

"Can we see her?" Gene asks loudly.

"Keep it down Gene. You can see your sister in the morning, she needs rest now," Mum says, closing TIna's door.

Through the door Tina can hear her Mum instructing her siblings to watch TV with her until they fall asleep, and for once in their lifetimes it wasn't something they want to do. Tina smiles, waits a couple of minutes for good measure, then leaps off her bed. She carefully places her foot down on the carpet at each dramatic step, but her arms go wild in the air. Her singing is silent but screaming in her mind, her eyes become teary, vision blurry as she tries to see out of her glasses.

It wasn't just seeing hot boys, she sees hot boys all the time and thinks about them for months. It was what they said about her that had her spinning in her bedroom. They called her a wolf. A _wolf_. She's never been called a wolf before, and it was a step in her progression to becoming a woman. A desirable, sexy, wolfy woman. Gentle by day, an animal by night. Oh she was living the dream.

"Well, well, well. Little miss Tina Belcher, what do we have here?"

It's Louise, and Tina stops. There's a moment of silence before Tina runs over to her sister and wraps her arms around her.

Louise tries to escape, "ew gross this is not how it's meant to go. Haven't ever seen mystery films Tina?"

"I love Mum and Dad but they smothered me too much. I'm a grown woman, I can look after myself."

"Yeah sure, that's why you're hugging me so ... tight!"

"I missed you,"

"Yeah thanks, whatever," Louise says, finally free from her sister's grip.

"I don't even know why I bothered coming, I knew this was gonna happen. I was just gonna give you this, well, I'm not gonna show it to you now even though it has your name on it." Louise says, leaning against Tina's door, arms crossed.

"That's fine, whatever's mine is yours. We're family."

"Tina you really suck at this. You're meant to get all angry and fight me for the information, jeez, why do I even try?" Louise says, violently tossing a napkin that she had been clutching.

The napkin floats gently to the ground as Louise opens the door, and she pauses in the gap to say slyly, "get well soon sis."

The door shuts leaving Tina to stare at the crumpled napkin, perplexed. She picks it up and sits on her bed to unfold it.

It reads,

_I need to talk to you about something very important, and I think you probably know what it's going to be about. I'll be back tomorrow after school, we both know you'll be better in no time._

_Scott_

 

Tina reads it only a couple of thousand times over before she falls back on her bed, kicks her legs up in the air and runs a marathon in the clouds.

 

*

 

 "Where are we meant to park? There's barely enough room for this to be a two way street, let alone for there to be cars parked on both sides," Stiles says, cruising slowly down the narrow road.

"This is why we should have gone without a car," Derek says.

"Are you kidding? Running through the night for you guys is fine but you're forgetting about me here. And wolves running around in the daytime is the exact reason why we're here, so don't even start."

"There!"

"That's an alley way, not a parking spot."

"Just park there, no one cares. Those cars parked on the street are so damn close to each other they probably haven't been able to move their cars in years," Scott says.

"Alright, but if I get a parking ticket, one of you has to pay it."

The boys get out of Stiles' car and head for Vivienne's apartment. Scott carries a box of Boyd's things with him, a gift to his grieving cousin.

"Scott, you told her we're coming right?" Stiles asks as they climb up the stairs to the foyer of Vivienne's apartment building.

"Relax, she knows. We're just a little late, hope she's not asleep."

Scott rings the doorbell, but no one buzzes them in. Scott tries again, still no reply. He tries the door anyway, and sighs with relief when it opens easily. The three make their way up the many flights of stairs before they get to the right floor.

On their way toward Vivienne's flat, Derek says, "something's off."

Scott sniffs the air and shares a worried look with Derek. They get to her door and knock. The force of the knock pushes the door open, and Scott almost drops Boyd's stuff all over the floor. Inside is a mess, furniture kicked over, books and paper spread all over the ground, and blood. So much blood. Derek steps through, covers his nose with the wrist of his leather jacket. When Derek gets to the couch, he has to look away for a brief moment. Scott and Stiles come in after Derek, stepping cautiously over the scene of the crime.

Laying on the couch, neck and body below mauled to shreds, lies Vivienne. Scott begins to transform, becoming increasingly angry. He drops Boyd's box of possessions on the ground and roars. Derek turns around, tries to harness Scott still. Derek turns for a brief moment, concentrates on Scott's eyes and calms him down, calms him to his human form.

"Stop it Scott. That's not going to help."

"I know! I know. Vivienne was, I mean, I didn't know her very well, but she was helping us, she knew about Boyd and she knew about what this guy was doing before we even knew he existed... " Scott says, registering what the probably cause of her death was. Scott bares his teeth, growls, an instinct to kill overcoming him.

"Easy, easy Scott," Stiles says, placing a firm hand on Scott's shoulder, "we don't know it was him, it could have been anyone."

"It's him, I know it. It's my fault though, I convinced her to try and find out more information while we got ready to come. It's my fault she died, she was Boyd's last..."

"Blaming yourself won't help." Stiles says, placing a reassuring hand on Scott's shoulder.

Scott breathes heavily, grips the back of the couch for support. Stiles is right, going on a wolf rampage won't do anyone good right now. They had to be smart about finding out who's up to all this, they had to be methodical.

"Who am I - Derek? Almost lost it there," Scott laughs, straightening up.

Derek grunts, "Haha. Where are we going to stay now?" Derek asks, folding his arms grumpily.

Stiles nods, tries to move the conversation away from their dead friend's dead cousin, "let's get out of here, find a cheap motel or something and after a good night's rest and grieving, we can get onto finding this bastard, make sure he gets what's coming to him. Okay? But Derek's right, we have to leave now, this is a crime scene after all. Who knows if the police have been called?"

Scott swallows tears, "alright, but let me just-"

Scott picks up the Boyd's box of possessions he dropped and places it beside Vivienne, in the cleanest place he could allow for.

He whispers, "I'm sorry I couldn't get here sooner. I let you down, Boyd."


	3. The Great Barrier Brief

It was hard to convince her parents that she was A-okay to go to school the next day. Tina hadn't ever missed a day of school, and in all honesty, she had no adversary effects from fainting; she felt good. Besides, she had read Scott's note over and over again, and from it had interpreted that Scott valued school just as much as she did, seeing as he'd said he'd _see her after school_. So despite her parents' worries, Tina anticipated going to school the next day. In Tina's books, a guy who valued school and disapproved slacking off is a keeper.

In the morning, she walks to school with her brother and sister. Her morning walk usually consists of admiring her favourite facets of nature; the way the city trees grow wild in their steel barricades, the way the pigeons clutch to the telephone wires, exchange gossip, and, more importantly, the way the teenagers at the recreation park slouch on the steps as they wait for their turn to dance, show off a bit of skin for her. However, due to recent events to do with an arrow lodged in Tina's heart, she forgets to pay attention to the leaves of the trees or the birds' songs, or the teenagers flexing muscles. Instead, she's caught up in a daydream.

She rides a silvery white unicorn through hordes of zombies, each one grabbing at her with deteriorating body parts, none of them able to get a grip. On the horizon, a shadow stands in front of a glowing sun. He's tall, dark, squared shoulders, and he's waiting for Tina. The hordes of zombies dissipate as she gets closer to her lover, the light behind him a halo around his body. Tina shakes her hair out, lets it flow with the wind, and she imagines sliding off the unicorn, feet cushioned by soft grass. She throws out her arms wide, mimicking Scott's shadow, and begins to run towards him.

"Tina, watch it! What do you think you're doing?" Jimmy Jr. says, trying to push Tina off him.

Somehow, Tina had pushed Jimmy Jr to the ground, and, oh, their lips were so close, so close.

Tina steps off Jimmy Jr. with the help of Gene.

"She was trying to drool all over you, Jimmy Ju!" Zeke exclaims, fingers locked in his messy hair.

"Back off Zeke! She was trying to give you much needed _water_ , Jimmy _Ju_ for your dehydrated, freaking loose hanging skin!" Louise retorts.

"My skin is not _loose_!" Jimmy Jr. says, touching his face, looks over at Zeke for support who only raises his shoulders and looks to the ground.

"You're skin is _kinda_ loose brother, only saying this as a true friend, you should probably drink more water or something.  I'm just saying..."

Jimmy Jr. shrieks and runs towards the nearest drinking fountain, pushes kids out of the way.

"Thanks Tina, I've been trying to tell him for weeks, bud's gotta know. You and I, we got the same interests."

Tina only nods as she watches Jimmy Jr.'s form as he tries to chug as much water down as he can, shuddering, shirt hitching up his back.

"So what did you end up doing your geography assignment on? I did mine on the Great Barrier Briefs."

Tina's gaze falls from Jimmy Jr.'s back to his butt, "uhhhhhhh...."

"You know, that thing on the side of Australia, the Great Barrier Reef. What did you do for your assignment?"

"What... assignment..."

Guilt and fear begin to swell within Tina and she just can't believe she forgot to do an assignment. She begins to feel hot, her muscles tighten, seem to bulge out of her body and she's so angry with herself, so stupid, how could she have forgotten school? She'll have to skip first period to do her assignment in the library, which means she'll have to catch up on the work she missed in that class. But what if it takes longer than one class to finish the assignment, and she just keeps missing out more and more class until she has it done, and what if she gets a bad mark on it, what if she fails it after all that time skipping out on class just to finish it?

"Our geography assignment on the seven natural wonders of the world. It's due this afternoon. I learnt a whole lot, did you know that if the temperature of the sea rises by just one degree the whole ecosystem will be destroyed -"

"I'll destroy you if you don't shut up and help us carry Tina to the nurse's office," Louise orders.

"Woah, what's happening? This doesn't look like no panic attack I've ever seen before. She looks _angry_ , why's she baring her teeth like that? When'd they get so sharp?"

Louise shakes her head, "Shut your mouth little red riding hood and help us get her to the nurse, _now_."

 

*

 

Stiles stirs in his sleep, tries to roll over but wakes himself up when he presses his forehead against the cold car window. He lies back on the car seat, arms wrapped tight around his body. It didn't feel right sleeping in Boyd's cousin's place when she had only recently died in there. Plus, you know, the fact that there was a dead body still inside the flat. Derek had advised against calling the police, claiming that since Vivienne was tracking the rogue aplha that was terrorizing the city, she would have some clues for them still. The guy might've tracked her scent on his trail and thought he was so smart to get rid of her, but he can't have known she had help coming or he would have made more of an effort to collect what she had on him. Since none of them had enough money to stay in a hotel, and none of them particularly wanted to sleep in Vivienne's flat, they had decided to sleep in the car, wait 'til morning to go through what Vivienne had found on the bastard.

Stiles tries to swallow but his throat is so dry that it only makes him cough, which he also tries to stifle into silence, to no avail.

"Stiles, you awake?" Scott whispers coarsely from the back seat.

Unable to speak yet, stiles simply grunts in response.

"I can't wait around any longer, I think we should go in now. Besides, the longer we leave Vivienne, the longer the Vernons won't know, the longer his family will have to wait until they can give her a funeral."

"I know," Stiles croaks, and adds, "I'm sorry."

Scott and Stiles pull themselves out of the car, bodies stiff and cold. Stiles rubs his hands together, the warm gleam from the city sun washing over his skin, waking him up.

"Wait a sec, where's Derek?" Stiles asks, glancing back at the car.

"He was pretty restless all night. Don't know how you could sleep through it actually. A couple of hours ago he went out to get some air. Think he said something about finding some coffee too."

"Man, he's been gone for that long? Let's just go on inside, get it over and done with."

"He'll be back soon," Scott says, slinging his arm around Stiles' shoulders, "I'm sure we'll get more work done without him making a mess of things as he usually does."

Stiles laughs as he walks with Scott into Vivienne's apartment block, feeling still not 100% okay, but better, about going into Vivienne's apartment again. At least he's not by himself.

 

*

 

The hair on Tina's arms and legs seem to bristle all over, try to poke through the tiny gaps between the thread in her clothing. Her hair is alive, an extra layer of muscle ready to burst and break away her clothes. Her nails are hardening, strengthening, elongating, sharply digging into her palms as she clenches, wills it all to stop. She hears every sound as her siblings and friends try to carry her to the infirmary. Every stack of books dropped on the ground around the corner is a thousand bricks dropped right next to her, bits of brick and dust fizzling into white noise mirroring the chatter of her schoolmates, all melded into one chaotic tune.

She's helped onto a bed, brush bristled legs slung across the mattress. Nurses busy themselves around her. The worried sounds of her friends and family are moved out of the room but she hears them still, they touch her heart. Tina's head lolls to the side, her glasses droop off her nose, and she looks with half-clarity half-blindness through the infirmary window. On the grassy oval, devoid of children, a man stands gruff, jaw set, eyebrows furrowed into a monobrow. His eyes glow blue, sapphires in the sunlight. His stare bores a laser into Tina's eyes, and in the millisecond it takes to remove her vision she sees him transform into a ferocious creature, a wolf. 


	4. the ass in assignment

Scott stands just before Vivienne's door, pulls his jacket cuff up to his nose and nods at Stiles to do the same. Scott steps through first, clutches the denim of his jeans in his spare hand so that he doesn't dig into the skin of his palm. Scott has it set in his mind that it was the rogue alpha who mauled Vivienne to death, who had turned a thirteen year old girl, who had been attacking city folk in plain sight. The events probably seem random to anyone else, but Scott wants to believe it's the one perpetrator. He doesn't want to think that it's anyone else. It might be easier to pin it all on one guy, but it isn't just that, he knows it in his wolf soul that it's the rogue alpha. It has to be, and that knowledge only fuels his anger and desire to bring him down.

As Scott moves through the room, tears prickle Scott's eyes, from the smell, from the sight, and he makes his way straight through to Vivienne's bedroom, Stiles close behind him. Her room is neat, plain, nothing exciting. If the alpha had thought that Vivienne was anything but a lonesome, potentially mentally unstable woman holed up in her apartment who was doing anything but tracking strange coincidences, he probably would have made an effort to destroy evidence of such. This guy probably thought she was nothing, a nobody, a no one of significance. It's insulting.

They have to do some searching but they soon find a shoebox under her bed, full of newspaper clippings, reports and the like. Sections of importance were circled in pink highlighter, with annotation made in blue pen.

Stiles kneels on the carpet, picks up a clipping, "hey, look at this, _Attacked by Tatty Teddy Bear Claims Local_ ,"

Scott laughs, "what's that about?"

"Says that this guy, Mr. Osia Shalit, was walking home from work late at night and got attacked by what he described as a large scruffy dog, or a malnourished bear. It says he has been experiencing strange symptoms since the encounter, like feeling extremely restless, hearing voices and the desire to run through the woods."

"This guy sounds nuts,"

"Maybe. Look here, on the side. Viv wrote a note saying she had tried to interview him but he was unresponsive, fidgety. Are you thinking what I'm thinking B1?"

"Um..... no?" Scott scratches his head.

"Aw come one dude. This guy's got a connection to this whole thing, maybe he's _turned_?"

"You think we should go talk to him?"

"Yeah, I mean, you're an Alpha so he's gotta do as you say."

"It doesn't really work like that..."

"It'll have to, for all we know this dude is the guy who killed Vivienne. Anyway, let's take this with us, so we don't have to ... come back here," Stiles says, putting the lid on the shoebox as he stands up.

Scott tightens his jaw, and nods, "let's get out of here."

The two leave Vivienne's bedroom, careful to not look at her lifeless body as they briskly leave her apartment. Once out in the open air, Stiles tentatively makes a call to the police to leave an anonymous tip about bad smells coming from the apartment. They don't want to get wrapped up in the police's business but they don't want to leave her body unattended any longer. Stiles hangs up when he's done reporting on the incident, slips the phone into his pocket.

"What's the time? I wanted to go see that girl. I don't want her to be in the dark about what's happening to her like I was," Scott says on their way to the car.

"Dude that's so good of you," Stiles says, squeezing Scott's shoulder. He then takes his phone out again, checks the time, "it's nearly midday."

"Man, it felt like hours in there... hey is that Derek?"

Stiles looks up to see Derek walking down the alleyway, his leather jacket tight over his shoulders as he pulls it across his body for that extra warmth.

"Derek!" Stiles calls, "where's my coffee?"

Derek shoots Stiles a condescending glance.

"Dude, where'd you go? You know there's a starbucks on practically every corner," Scott says, smiling.

"I wasn't getting coffee," Derek growls.

"Whatever. While you were running with the racoons Scott and I got an actual lead. We're gonna go check it out now."

"Actually, now that Derek's back, I'm gonna head over to Bob's Burgers. So Stiles, you go with Derek and you'll be fine."

"Hey, I don't need a babysitter!"

 

*

 

Back home, Tina sits at her desk frantically working on her assignment. It took a lot of convincing but Linda's able to get Tina to come home, let her rest in her own bed. She even convinces Tina's teacher to give Tina an extension on her assignment, though Tina promises she can get it done that night. Tina pauses every so often, acutely hears the movements of her parents in the house, she knows the house well, she's grown up in that house but it's like, ever since she met those handsome gentlemen, something's changed in her, like a new perspective, a new dimension has opened up for her and she can sense things like she couldn't before.

Her ears prickle, Linda's making her way down the hallway to Tina's room so she quickly closes her notebook and dives into her bed, throwing the blankets over her head. She feigns sleeping as her Mum creaks open the door.

"I know you're not sleeping honey," Linda says softly.

Tina doesn't say anything, hopes that if she doesn't, her Mum just might think she is in fact asleep.

"I just want to make sure you're okay baby,"

Amidst the blankets, Tina says, "I'm okay,"

"Okay," Linda accepts, waits by the door, then leaves.

Tina waits until she hears Linda's feet go downstairs and she bounds back to her desk. On the corner sits the note Scott left her. A grin splits her face and she clutches the note to her chest, spinning around, hair letting loose only slightly. She stops, clutches the desk for balance and looks out the window.

She can smell him before he even rounds the corner but she looks on until she sees Scott, not quite believing her strange clairvoyance yet. As she bounds out of her room and down the stairs, she thinks that the 'ignment' of ass-ignment can wait, she's got a hot butt to see downstairs.

Tina leans against the brick wall of the restaurant, out of sight of her parents, and primps her hair with her fingers.

She hears Teddy inside saying, "anyway, my mother called me for three hours straight because of the stuff that's happening in the news. She thinks _I'm_ the Teddy terrorising the town."

Linda says, "who know, you probably are with that a-killeration am I right Bobby?"

Down the street Tina can see Scott strolling slowly towards the restaurant, which means she has enough time to block out all noise and watch the way his body moves through the air, leather jacket on plain cotton shirt, denim jeans hugging his thighs. Now if he could just turn around a little bit… Yes, that's it, that's the rounded hot cross bun in town.

Tina, hidden partially by the shadows of the alleyway, is too preoccupied with checking Scott out that Scott walks straight passed her. She dashes out into the sunlight and calls out, "I'm over here,"

Scott turns around, "Ah, there you are, I knew you were close,"

"Can we go over here," Tina explains as she returns to her position leaning against the wall in the shadow covered alley, "my parents think I'm asleep, and I'm meant to be doing an ass-assignment…"

"Hey yeah, shouldn't you be at school? I was going to wait for you here until you got out,"

Butterflies burst out of Tina's mouth as she contemplates the idea that Scott was going to wait for her.

"I'm sick, well, not really I forgot about this assignment and well I don't know, I guess this is my first time that I didn't do an assignment, I'm sorry,"

"Don't be sorry, I don't go to school anymore either. But that's what I wanted to talk to you about, about what's going on with your body."

"What's going on with my body…" Tina drawls, thinking of Scott's body.

"Well I just want to tell you about it because no one told me about it and it scared the shit out of me, I thought I was going to die or something,"

"Go on," Tina tries to curl her hair but it's too short and she ends up bumping her glasses off her nose as she does it.

"Okay, so you're going to notice some weird shit happening to your body like you're going to start hearing voices and you're going to become really agile and able to run for long distances without breaking a sweat and you're going to be able to smell really good,"

"You smell really good," Tina says quietly.

"Yeah… I do because all these things I'm talking about, it's because you got turned. It's a little weird and scary and some of the new things you can do can be pretty shitty and damaging but we like to think of it as a gift, you're going to live longer and you're going to be able to survive better… Is this making sense?"

Tina nods, the butterflies and pink haze swirling around Scott's figure unrelenting and extremely distracting.

"I don't know how long you've been turned for but I can tell not very long. So I'm warning you, tonight's the full moon, the big doozey, for a newly turned it's almost impossible not to transform so do you have a safe place to lock yourself up in?"

Images of Scott saddled on a horse, ribbons tied in his hair as he gallops through a field of roses infiltrate Tina's mind.

The sound of Scott's phone ringing pulls her back into reality.

"Hang on a sec, I have to take this," Scott takes out his phone, "Stiles. Did you talk to him? … Uh huh… Oh… shit man… Are you kidding me, how did you guys lose my wallet? This is why I shouldn't leave anything in your car… I'm at Bob's Burgers… See you soon."

Scott pulls his fingers through his hair and then faces Tina.

"Do you have like a basement or something?"

Tina nods.

"It's getting late, I need to talk to your parents."

Scott starts to make his way around the corner but Tina runs after him, "No, what are you doing?"

At the door to the restaurant, Scott says, "it's fine, I'm going to ask for their help. The sooner they know, the better. Trust me."

"Tina? You're meant to be resting!" Linda says, running around the counter to hug her daughter.

Tina wriggles out of her Mother's arms, "Mum!"

"Who's this?" Linda says, standing straight, eyeing Scott.

"The handsome biker from the other day?" Teddy suggests.

Tina's voice sparks, she asks suspiciously, "how do you know about that?"

"Bob told me," Teddy replies.

"Mr Burgers sir-" Scott begins.

"It's Belcher," Bob interjects.

"Mr Burgers Belcher I was wondering if-"

"No, no… It's Bob Belcher. Not burgers. Why does everyone think that my name has Burgers in it?"

"I know it's short notice and you barely know us but I was wondering if we could stay in your basement tonight?"

"Yes!" Both Tina and Linda exclaim.

"No… no why are you so fast to say yes?" Bob sighs.

"Just for the night? My friends lost my wallet so we have no place to stay,"

"So you have no money," Bob says flatly.

"Not exactly, I'm going to call another friend to bring some up tomorrow but tonight we need a _safe_ and _secure_ place to stay."

"Oh please Bobby, let him stay, look at those puppy dog eyes, how can you say no?"

Bob takes in a deep breath, "Oh my god no."

Linda takes Scott by the arm, "it's fine, it's  _fine_ , so long as it's only one night right Bobby?"

"Wait, wait, wait," Bob says, holding up his hands, "didn't you say 'we'?"

At that moment, Stiles and Derek swing open the restaurant door, the bell announcing their arrival, "Thanks Mr. Burgers."

Bob blinks, opens his mouth, closes it, then walks back into the kitchen.

 

To be continued...


	5. The first lead

Earlier that day…

 

"I told you we should have taken my jeep," Stiles says as Derek does a U-turn at the end of the street for only maybe the fifth time, "other drivers find it intimidating, they make way for it."

Derek merely grumbles something incoherent in response, his eyebrows angled acutely. They'd been driving up and down the busy street for at least twenty minutes, trying to squeeze into a park. Finally a silver hatchback pulls out leaving Derek just enough space to squeeze in. Derek lurches the car in, securing the spot for himself.

"I hate big cities," Derek growls, turns off the ignition.

Stiles steps out of the car, fishes out the newspaper they found in Vivienne's room. According to the notes she had written on the side, this was the address of Osia Shalit, the person who had first reported sightings of a giant bear-like creature rampaging the streets. The house wasn't quite as well maintained as the photograph in the newspaper depicted; the once worn but well kept house exterior and garden had fallen into disrepair, cheap plaster walls smashed through leaving a gaping hole out the side of the house. Easy pick for robbers who ever thought a neighbourhood like this would be worthwhile robbing.

Stiles and Derek walk toward 2/56, the garden nothing but dry, dead leaves sinking into dust. Derek knocks on the door, grows impatient far too quickly and knocks again, aggressive.

Stiles catches Derek's hand, "calm down, give him time to answer."

He says this, and tries to reflect calm on himself. He can't stop thinking that there could be a rabid wolf inside, or maybe a bear like the newspapers said, cooped up in a claustrophobic house, clawing at that hole in the wall, so close to freedom. Any animal could've done that, any person too. The walls are old, old enough to have asbestos in them. Stiles hadn't heard of any kind of asbestos related mental health issues but who knows what could happen when mixed with supernatural crazy? And well, Derek mightn't exactly be an Alpha anymore but he's better than nothing when it comes to protection of bodily harm to a helpless human.

Derek bands his fist on the door again, the wood splintering against the locks. There's a clattering noise coming from within the house and Derek's nose flares, eyes widen.

"He's on the other side," Derek says in a low voice.

"Go away!" Osia cries, shrill.

Stiles clears his throat, "don't worry, we're not the police. We just want to as you a few questions."

"That's what the police say!"

Derek grunts and Stiles could probably have predicted what was going to happen next, but he doesn't have enough time to stop it. It's not the best idea either, but it's what Derek does, makes moves without thinking. Derek throws his weight against the door, the flimsy locks break and the wood smacks against the wall. Osia, who was cowering by the window adjacent the door, cries out a strangled, scared cry, fear intoxicating him. It's irrational, swells within him at an intense rate, but then again, some dude with a real angry face did just barge into his house uninvited. Osia starts to run to the back of the house but Derek steps through, lunges after him and catches Osia's legs, pulling them both to the ground.

Stiles rushes in, unsure what to do. There's Derek wrestling with Osia on the stained carpet, the turn rippling through Osia's body - hair grows at an alarming rate over his face, his neck, thickness of fur spurting across his arms and legs. HIs face elongates, teeth sharpens, pleas for help transform into howls. Stiles has seen werewolves turn before but never like this, never out of complete and utter fear for one's life.

"Get off me, I did what you asked!" Osia shouts, wolfness folding out the coherency of his words, "I just want to be left alone!"

Derek tries to lock Osia into a prison inside his arms but Osia jolts around violently, kicks against the wall, scratches Derek's skin, does anything he can to escape.

"You told me if I killed her you wouldn’t kill me, you promised! You promised!" Osia roars, saliva splaying from his mouth.

Derek, fed up with the protesting, roars loudly. It sends a shiver down Stiles' back, he's heard this kind of roar before, a long, commanding roar that's meant to silence the turn. It has the same effect on him even though he's human, makes him calm despite the loudness, makes him still, quiet. But the alpha volume is lacking and it has an opposite effect on Osia. Instead of calming him, Osia's turning quickens exponentially. His body bends at awkward spots, cracks and arches his limbs until his body snaps into complete form, and with that full strength he is able to break free from Derek.

Derek is pushed to the ground, his extended fingernails scraping against the cement floor. Osia scampers toward the front door, bowling Stiles down as he flees. Derek is on his feet again, pursuing Osia, but once he's on the threshold of Osia's house, he's too late. There's a loud band, deep, metallic, and the sound of screeching brakes echoes in the street. Cars either side of the road come to a halt and people begin screaming. Stiles, still a little dizzy from the fall, braces himself against the door frame, back of his head held up against the wood.

Across the road he sees Osia, body mangled up against the bull bar of a four-wheel drive. He shimmers between twisted dog and blood covered man, slowly slips down the metal, flops to the asphalt road. In another life Stiles would have to look away, maybe he would have vomited right then and there, but he's just a regular teenaged boy who's used to seeing dead bodies.

"Big cars don't belong in the city," Derek says, voice strained, and adds after a while, "I could have stopped him."

"You tried, it's not your fault," Stiles says quietly, knowing that even under the ambulance sirens, Derek could hear him.

Derek shakes his head, "I scared him away. Now what are we going to do? He was our only lead."

"He was our _first_ lead," Stiles says. He pushes off the door frame, gently places his hand on the small of Derek's back, "hey, we should get out of here before people start to try to ask _us_ questions. Let's go find Scott."

 

*

 

Tina sits on the stool at the counter, spins it around, her feet stuck in the feet to prevent it from spinning all the way around. She can't stop smiling, internally and externally, her boys are staying the night.

"Where's this basement?" Derek asks, standing square, arms folded.

Derek looks pale, but his eyes are set, intent on maintaining a stern image.

Bob nods to the basement door, "you don't want to dig your way to a bank do you?"

Scott and Stiles both raise their eyebrows.

Derek touches the stone wall of the basement, says gruffly, "Wouldn't work."

Linda fixes her hands on her hips, "yeah well someone thought it was a good idea. Now do you boys want some dinner? We've just shut off all the grills but we can whip something up for ya upstairs."

Tina's heart skips a beat. If they come up stairs, that's one step closer to getting one of the boys, or maybe even all three, into her bedroom.

"Oh no thanks ma'am," Scott glances at the time on his phone, "it's really late. Stiles, can you get the stuff from the car?"

Stiles nods and slips outside. Derek stomps down the basement stairs, disappears into the depths.

When Stiles comes back with a cardboard box in his arms, Scott asks, "what's up with him?"

"Yeah right, looks like he's seen a dead body!" Louise says, throwing her arms up in the air.

"Yeah…" Stiles grimaces, takes the box towards the basement.

"What's that rattling noise, you got chains in there or something?" Gene asks, standing up on a booth chair to try and look into the open box.

"Man, are you sure these guys aren't really…?" Stiles suggests, standing in the doorframe of the basement.

Scott shakes his head in response, and Stiles disappears downstairs.

Bob puts his hand to his forehead, "please don't tell me you're setting up some kind of dungeon _thing_ down there. I have kids in this house you know."

"A _dungeon_! Yes, it all makes sense now, the surprising new addition to our team, the quest to go to the dungeon, we're going to face the boss battle right? Don't you think we should level grind before we face up to the big old boss, I'm not sure about you guys but I feel overwhelmingly unprepared," Gene exclaims.

"Hey, no one's fighting me in the basement, or you know, doing anything else down there except for sleeping quietly, okay?" Bob says.

"Right, we should close up Bobby, give our guests some privacy," Linda says.

"Oh my gosh I knew it! It's no regular boss battle, it's a double battle! Mum and Dad versus three biker boys and the kids! It'll be game of the year I can tell already!" Gene bellows.

Tina speaks up, "I'll finish up, you guys go on upstairs."

"Are you sure honey?" Linda asks, throwing a dish towel over her shoulder.

"Yeah, sure, there's not much left to do," Tina says, throwing her parents the most reassuring smile she can make, "I've closed up a hundred times, no wait, maybe… hang on.. jeez maths isn't my forte at all.. maybe like five hundred times before, I can do this."

On her way out, Louise slaps Tina's shoulders, "taking one for the team sis, good one."

The rest of her family leaves and Tina rushes to finish up closing the store. The sooner she finishes, the sooner she can hang out with the boys.


	6. Hot and Cold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tina's first turn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that i haven't updated this story in a long time, and sorry again that this chapter is short. I stopped watching Teen Wolf a while ago, but Tina's story is something i still think about. Anyway, it's really rough, please put up with the unbeta-ed nature of it. Thanks for sticking with me on this one.

There isn’t much left to do for closing up shop. She makes sure all the stock is ready for the next morning and finishes off her cleaning jobs while the boys take this and that from their car and bring it all down to the basement. When she’s done she creeps toward the basement door, listening intently. Her leg feels itchy and sore and it takes all her effort not to scratch it.

Tina steps quietly down the basement stairs, one foot at a time. As the view of the basement gets wider and wider, she makes out Stiles chaining up a shirtless Scott up against the boiler, beside a very bare chested Derek. Tina takes a quick intake of breath, an innocent voyeur from the staircase.

“My butt’s hot,” Derek grunts.

Scott laughs but cuts it short with a growl as Stiles pulls the chain tight around his wrists.

Tina starts to get sweaty thinking about Derek’s hot butt against the boiler, and she has to take hold of the railing. She swallows hard, probably a bit too hard.

“Tina, is that you?” Scott calls out.

Tina tries to clear her throat, scratchy and hot and all she can think about is naked man chests, sweaty and hairy and flexed muscles. “Y-yeah.”

Scott snarls at Stiles as the chains are pulled tighter, “isn’t that enough?”

“Better safe than sorry.”

Scott breathes evenly, trying to remain calm, “hey, don’t be afraid Tina. It’s a little weird, but we thought we’d do ourselves up first so as not to scare you. But come on down, we don’t have long.”

Tina feels drawn to the scene, follows the stairs down to the floor and plonks herself down on the couch, perfect view of the two men strapped against the boiler.

“You talked her through it right Scott?” Stiles asks as he finishes Scott off.

“Yeah, had to. Would’ve been great to have someone tell me what’s going on when it happened to me,” Scott says, glaring at Derek.

Derek shrugs and turns his gaze to the side wall, away from the three.

Stiles goes over to an open box and pulls out some chains, then makes his way towards Tina.

“Uhhhhhh….” Tina gasps.

She glances to Scott, a gentle smile on his face.

Derek, a frown, taught muscles, beads of sweat on his abdomen, neatly trimmed hair travelling down from his belly button.

“Uhhh….” Tina gargles, glancing at Stiles, a set grimace on his face, coiling the chains around his hands.

Her eyes are drawn to Scott’s bare chest, hairless, tanned, sculpted muscles. She starts to breathe heavily and feels slightly dizzy, her leg flares up and she’s sure cutting it off would be the only solution to the inescapable itch. Stiles sits down beside her and gently takes her hand in his and Tina’s blinded by naked chests and hot butts and soft smiles crossed with grimaces and the chains and the _itch_ , the unbearable itch and she can’t see. She can’t see, sees black and nothing and is falling through the floor, swallowed up in an abyss.

 

*

 

“Linda…” Bob asks his wife, lying beside her in bed.

Linda doesn’t answer, instead she continues to wriggle her feet in the sheets, causing the whole bed to rattle.

“Linda…”

It’s almost midnight and she’s certain Tina hasn’t returned to her bedroom.

“Linda!” Bob shouts, shaking Linda’s shoulder.

“What? What is it?” Linda asks, grumpy.

“Are you going to check on her?”

“Yes,” Linda says, wriggling her feet vigorously.

“I’m sure she’s fine, but you’re worried. Go check on her Linda.”

Linda sits up and swings her feet out of bed, tapping the floor anxiously, “she’s been acting weird lately, don’t you think Bobby?”

“It’s probably just the boys.”

“Do you think so? But,” she looks at the time, it’s almost midnight, “do you think I made the right decision? What’s she still doing down there? She’s got school tomorrow. She’s usually more responsible.”

Bob rubs Linda’s back, “want me to come with you?”

Linda gets up, “no it’s fine Bobby, get some sleep.”

 

*

 

 “Oh my god, did she just faint?” Stiles gasps, dropping the chains to the floor.

“Stiles!” Scott groans.

“Hey, it’s not my fault! You scared her!” Stiles retorts.

“You sure she understood what’s going on?” Derek asks.

Scott growls, “Yeah! I mean, well, I think so. Come to think of it, she seemed pretty distracted when I was talking to her.”

There’s a knock on the basement door that makes all three of them jump.

“Shit. Fuck!” Stiles says, quickly dragging the chains back to the box.

Linda calls through the door, “Tina? Is my Teenie in there?”

Stiles closes the lid of the box and sends a stern look to the boys chained up, “y-yeah! Just give me a second!”

He pulls his jacket off and drapes it over Tina, then runs up the stairs, two at a time. Opening the door, he says with his best calm voice, “hello Mrs. Burgers.”

Linda doesn’t bother correcting him, instead she tries to peer over his shoulder, “Tina, are you down there?”

Stiles begins to sweat, he stands off to the right to make it harder for Linda to see down the stairs, hoping his body can block off any view of the two boys chained up.

“You’ve got school tomorrow Tina, you can’t stay up late honey,” Linda calls. She squats and peaks through the gap between Stiles’ legs and the wooden stairs. There, on the couch she spies her daughter resting.

“Aw look at that, my baby’s fast asleep!” She stands up, lowers her voice, “did you hear what I said though? She’s got school tomorrow so she needs to sleep – peacefully. So don’t disturb her. And if you do anything to her, I’ll get a real gang on you and you’ll be sorry.”

Stiles backs up, hands in a defensive position, “calm down Mrs. Burgers, she’ll be fine. We’ll wake her up for school, don’t worry.”

“Okay good, I knew I made the right decision about you boys.” Linda says.

Stiles watches as Linda turns on her heels and marches out, arms swinging. He closes the basement door and heaves out a sigh.

“Hurry up Stiles!” Scott barks, followed by a deep howl, “argh- I can feel it coming on, you’ve got to get her tied up! Hurry!”

 

*

 

Tina wakes up on the couch, her back sore, her wrists and ankles even sorer. She has this weird memory of a dream of herself being tied up to the freezer door, cold metal on her back. And this kind of blurry vision of wolves chained to the boiler in place of hot boys, still hot and sweaty but writhing and angry and wild and threatening to break loose, bolts slacking in the joints to the wall.

“I’ve never seen anything like it before,” Derek says in a low voice from behind her.

“She was so calm, is she really the same species as us?” Scott asks.

“She’s gotta be right? I mean, just because she acted a little different doesn’t mean she’s not one of you guys, I mean, she looks the same,” Stiles says.

“I’ll have to do some research.”

Scott sighs, “do we really have to get your uncle into this, he’s such a dick.”

“Peter’s the only person who knows enough about werewolf history to help us. You don’t have to be there when I talk to him.”

Tina’s ears perk up at the word ‘werewolf’. She rolls over, keeps her eyes shut.

“Ugh, fine. Stiles, let’s look over Vivienne’s stuff again, might find something to help us understand what’s going on in this city.”

“We know what’s going on. Some Alpha’s turning strangers – kids – into werewolves. He’s making an army,” Stiles states.

“That’s absurd,” Scott exclaims.

“I agree with Stiles. There’s something bigger going on than just some random killings in a country town. And the more we know about him the more we can figure out a way to stop him,” Derek says.

“Really? This is crazy, we’re in over our heads,” Scott sighs.

“And we’ve got a lot of work to do. And _you_ need to call Allison,” Stiles says to Scott.

“Come on, we need to go. It’s almost 8.30,” Derek says.

Tina sits up abruptly, “8.30! I’m going to be late for school!”

**Author's Note:**

> to be continued...


End file.
